Talking about Body Image

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-koppelkam/body-image_b_3678534.html   <=Read this first.

I read an article by the Huffington Post telling mothers how to talk to their daughters about their body.

“Step one: don't talk to your daughter about her body unless it's to tell her how it works.”

It goes on with lots of good ideas about how to better compliment your daughter then to talk about how she looks, and I agree with some of the points about eating and cooking healthy food and teaching her to be athletic for the sake of athleticism, but on the article as a whole I disagree entirely.

If you aren't going to talk to your daughter about her body, who will? Maybe it will be her friends, who have body image issues of their own because they're teenagers and sometimes that's something they go through. Or maybe it will be other kids who won't be as nice about it. Or maybe the media will do that job for you. And if they do it, you can guarantee that they'll get it wrong.
No matter what your daughter looks like the media will find a way of making her hate some aspect of her body, and because you haven't told her what's good about herself, she may not realize that she isn't supposed to look like the glossy airbrushed photos in Cosmo or Vogue. Just because you don't talk to her about it, doesn't mean she won't go through all the same things that other girls go through when they look at themselves and don't like what they see.
Worse yet, because you didn't talk to her about it, she might think it's an off limits conversation and not be able to talk to you about it.

Body image, much like any other issue, won't go away just because you ignore it. While it's much better to model a healthy lifestyle and promote internal beauty over good looks or being thin, it's just as important to help your daughter understand her physical body. She needs to learn to love the parts about her that make her physically beautiful just as much as she needs to know that being smart is just as important, if not infinitely more important, than being beautiful.

And she needs to learn how to deal with the parts of herself she doesn't like. Does she need to lose weight? As much as we want large women to feel equally beautiful in their bodies, sometimes weight is a legitimate health concern. Sometimes she needs to be able to look at herself honestly and say, “my body isn't healthy like this, I should fix it.” Then she needs to know how to change her lifestyle to be more active and more healthy. If she looks at herself in the mirror and cannot accurately judge if there is something wrong, then she may be putting herself at risk for diabetes or other heart and health concerns.

I'm not saying that you should ever tell your daughter she's fat and should go on a diet, but you are her mother/father and it is your job to help promote a healthy lifestyle for her and keep her safe from harm. Sometimes you may just have to talk about her body, or your body or the bodies of other women.
On that note:

“Don't comment on other women's bodies. Nope. Not a single comment, not a nice one, not a mean one.”

Really? Don't tell your daughter that the pictures of Kim Kardashian and her all too famous sisters that dawn the cover of every magazine in the grocery store aren't real or accurate? I shouldn't point out that women don't look like that without a lot of help from technology that paints the picture to make it more beautiful? Why not? If I don't it is entirely possible for a little girl to go through life believing that she should look like Kim Kardashian, or Katie Holmes, or Scarlett Johansson. And she never will, because in real life we don't get to photoshop out our belly buttons. Our daughters need to know what a good role model for physical beauty is, and better yet, what a role model for physical health looks like. She needs to understand why people look different, and how she can effect the look of her own body. Sure, try not to be nasty to other women because you don't like the way they look, but we need to look at the world around us and understand it, not be naive to the fact that some women weren't born looking like Barbie.

If we make the choice not to talk about our bodies they will not magically become perfect. We need to be aware of them and their physical needs. That means discussing our flaws and then assessing their value and worth.
For example: my mom hates her stretch marks, but always reminds us that even though she hates them she also loves that they are part of the process that gave her three wonderful children. We have always joked about the fact that we have curves from our big hips, big thighs and big bust. We discuss the problems and the beauty of them. We talk about what we like, what we would wish away and what we try and change. We discuss weight loss efforts while reassuring each other that we are beautiful at any size. We celebrate weight loss and ignore the small increases. We talk openly and honestly about how we feel about ourselves and we help each other find things in their own body to love. I make sure to flatter my sister when she wears clothes that suit her and talk her out of clothes that don't. As much as we hate it, it is our responsibility to teach our children about their physical body, inside and out.

The last point of contention I have with this article is that it is about talking to your daughters. With the rapid increase of anorexia and other eating disorders in men, I think it is equally important to talk to our sons about their image. They are hit with images as well, of men with airbrushed six packs and photoshopped muscles. They need to understand too that these images are not something to build your body image around. That no amount of steroids or hours at the gym will make you look like that. They need to be as comfortable in their own bodies as they can be, same as girls.
Body image is pretty much universal in our western society and we need to arm our children by reminding them they are beautiful and special in their own way. They need to learn to love and accept themselves while still having a realistic view of their own body. Rather than make it appear to be nothing, we need to help them through it and find themselves in whoever they happen to be.

Awareness is Only The First Step

Facebook is overrun with cartoons and it's for a good cause. Every person who has changed their picture to that of their favourite childhood cartoon is (supposedly) advocating for the same thing. Awareness of the problem of Child Abuse.
Everyone knows someone who has been affected by child abuse, whether they know it or not. Someone in your life might very well have gone through the horrors that is a life of violence, neglect, emotional and psychological degradation, or sexual abuse.
It might have been at the hands of a family member, children or adults at school, in the community or in so many other forms. They may be a victim now, or they may be survivor of the pain.
They might have grown up into strong, passionate and caring individuals, whose life doesn't seem to reflect a childhood of pain, anguish and fear.
Or they might be angry, broken people still devastated by what they went through and blaming a system that let them down and didn't save them.
They might have been bullied in school, having adults ignore their suffering. That's abuse.
They might have grown up in a home where they were told they were useless, stupid, ugly, or worthless. That's abuse.
They might have be left so much to their own resources that they were faced with neglect. Nobody feeds them, cares for them, and they are left alone to take care of themselves even if they are just children. That's abuse.
They might have been physically hurt by the people charged with taking care of them. Beaten by parents, guardians, or their siblings. That's abuse.
They might have been sexually violated or exploited. The same potential culprits; parents, guardians, family members, siblings or members of the community. That's abuse.
With adults there is still abuse, on an equally and sometimes more vast scale.
Physical abuse, beatings, emotional abuse, forcible confinement, cutting them off from friends and loved ones, being told they're worthless and deserve the abuse, having their financial situation devastated by their partners, having their possessions and property damaged, and sexual abuse. That is abuse.
And too often we're completely unaware of the abuse that people close to us go through. Afraid or unable to talk about it, victims grow up, live through it and never talk about what happened or is still happening to them. Many, hopefully, become survivors.
Many don't.
Sometimes the abuse kills them. Whether it is the abuser that kills them, intentionally or not, or the build up the emotional destruction. It turns to depression, it turns to suicide.
Survivors sometimes give up, dealing with the past is too much and they take their own lives.
Sometimes children don't grow up, because they don't get that opportunity. And sometimes they grow up too fast. Taking care of themselves, their siblings and sometimes, their parents.
So now you're aware.
What are you going to do about it?
Because awareness is only the first step. Once you're aware of the problem the expectation is that you will be moved to do something. To help those in need, because you are so blessed to not be in their position.
Maybe you have been. I know a lot of people recovering from being in a place of abuse, of bullying, or torment and pain and who have survived.
Some are still in the process of healing, and will be for a long time.
So what can you do? How can you help?
Hug a social worker. They're doing everything in their power to help those coming out of abuse, and trying so hard to prevent it, stop in and be there for those that have endured it. But its not easy and sometimes they need a reminder that what they're doing matters.
Donate your time, energy, money and prayers to the organization of your choice. Women's shelters, children's agencies like The Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, Kid's Help Phone, UNICEF, International Justice Mission, Churches, the RCMP, anyone. Don't just sit back and let this happen.
Familiarize yourself with the signs that a child might be abused and when they tell you what's happening, listen! Go to the RCMP's website and read up on Child Abuse. http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/ccaps-spcca/chi-enf-eng.htm#tphp
Don't let awareness be your last step. When all the faces come back on facebook, don't forget the children we were representing. Don't let abuse become okay, because it's not.

Freedom of Religion: The Freedom to Impose your Religion on Someone Else

It's your average suburban area, with schools, houses, and grocery stores and such things. Middle-class America where your neighbours are just a little too concerned that your grass isn't cut the proper way, or at all some days, and everyone is just a little more 'proper' and narcissistic than they have any right to be.
A young man, fresh from Seminary, finds that the neighbourhood has so many things, but no place for the Christian population to worship and hear the Word of God. So he takes it upon himself to find a proper building, get all the necessary permits, look into staff, and start a small church.
And then he tells his neighbour, who is not a Christian. The neighbour is horrified!
A church? The breeding grounds of hypocrisy and disdain and judgmentalism? In their neighbourhood? Where their children could overhear Christian ministers preaching about condemnation, hell, and the shortcomings of other religions?
The neighbour is quick to inform the others in the neighbourhood about the church. He makes sure to point out how Christians were responsible for the Crusades, how they start conflict with those that don't agree with them, share propaganda with impressionable youth, and teach a religion that is full of hypocrisy, judgement, and superiority, putting themselves above the law.
The neighbourhood is in outrage. Members off different faiths unite to keep the church from being formed. They protest, armed with signs, picketing the potential church site. Letters are written to the government and sides are taken at City Hall and in the State Legislature. Some support the church, some oppose it. The congregation of this church could take over the government, destroy the Constitution and bring on the end of the world, its' opponents argue.
Preposterous isn't it? Why would a country that has the freedom of religion in it protest the presence of a church? Any church?
But read this:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/us/08mosque.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Maybe you agree with the protesters, that having a Mosque in a community is dangerous, promotes violence, leads to terrorism, and will ultimately destroy good communities. But, how can you demand freedom of religion if you are not willing to give it to someone else? Maybe you don't believe the same things, don't condone their views, and don't want them in your neighbourhood. But what about you? Your religion or lack thereof, your lifestyles and beliefs, and everything you do. Should they be put up for public debate? If not, why not?
Maybe that's going a little far. Still, if we extend freedom to practice religion to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religions, the simple fact of the matter is that we must also extend it to Muslims as well. Even if we don't want to.
In every religion there are radicals. Every community has those who take things a little too far. But, as this article points out on page two, radicals don't usually attend church. It's too traditional for them, too conservative, and doesn't promote the things they want to see happen. I'm pretty sure the Internet promotes more extremism, radicalism, and conflict than a church does.
In protesting freedom of religion, which is essentially what these Tea Partiers are protesting, you show only the darkness of the human condition, and of any religion. It shows only contempt, superiority, judgement, and hypocrisy. Contempt for another's beliefs, superiority in our belief that only we are right, judgement in how things should be done, and hypocrisy in our cry for freedom of religion for us and not for others.
Freedom of religion: The right, as guaranteed under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to practice one's religion or exercise one's beliefs without intervention by the government and to be free of the exercise of authority by a church through the government.

And for the official follow up, check this out.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/real-americans-please-stand-up/

The Plastic Bag From American Beauty

So, a couple years back I had to write a creative response to American Beauty. If you've seen the movie you might recall the video clip that show's a plastic bag being blown about by the wind. Oddly enough, that was the scene I was required to write about.
I found that essay today, tucked back into files from 2007/2008 school work, and thought I'd share it with you. I surprised myself with what I'd written and the way I went about it.
Note: It's to be read from Ricky's point of view.

Creative Response to Text
By Marissa Holmberg

A plastic bag blows in the wind, its fate sealed by the wind as it floats down the street past on coming traffic and people in the distance. The cold day makes people scurry across streets and hide in buildings and cars. They are amusing to watch, but my camera isn’t focused on the people; it isn’t focused on the traffic or the weather. It’s focused on the plastic bag, fluttering in the wind, blown about with no regard and no control.
It reminds me of my life. Forced from one house to the other, to follow the rules without argument and to live the way my dear and loving father tells me too. Am I any different then the bag? I pause to consider why I am filming something as simple as a plastic bag in the wind. I think about why it matters to me, what draws me into this scene instead of another.
The air feels stiff with static, and you can almost hear it, the little sparks of electricity in atmosphere. It’s beautiful. So simple and so complicated, like the bag is a person, a child maybe, and the wind is all the circumstances we are compelled to fight.
But why do we fight? Why don’t we give ourselves up to these circumstances and just let ourselves be blown about by the winds of fate? After all, it works so well for the plastic bag. It has given up and stopped fighting. Maybe, so have I. After all, when was the last time I told my father I wouldn’t do something just because he told me to?
The drugs. I still deal them, still do them, despite the fact that he’s threatened to ship me off to the reserves if he catches me. I guess it just means I have to make sure not to get caught. Is that fighting the circumstance? Or just being rebelliously ignorant?
Beauty. Can we give up on beauty? People don’t see beauty in anything anymore. They walk by me, and I know they think I’m crazy, standing here with my camera focused on a plastic bag. They don’t see the bag as beautiful, and I worry that if I don’t catch it now, I too will lose the belief that there is beauty in everything. There is some force in the world telling me that this is beautiful, that I need to film this and that I never need to be afraid again.
This bag represents the beauty of life. Of a little kid that wants to play in the fresh falling snow, catching snow flakes on his tongue. I can see it, as it jumps upwards and falls back to the ground, catching the wind. Am I crazy for seeing it; for seeing in it the beauty of two lovers dancing on a crowded street with no regard for the people watching them. They hear the music in their heads and the laugh and dance and sing. They don’t care that nobody else can hear the music, that everyone thinks they’re crazy. The bag is dancing with me, like the woman unaware of everyone else’s eyes. She doesn’t care that nobody else sees the beauty of her movements, they are just for me.
We are compelled to fight. This bag is compelled to try and escape the wind and I am compelled to respond to the violence shown to me by seeing the beauty in the world around me. I try and look at the bag as having a mind, because then we can connect on a different level. Personification. I stop thinking that the bag is a victim of the wind’s power, that it has no choice but to be blown about. I think that maybe it isn’t just being pushed around, but that it’s fighting to get out. And it’s telling me, as the voice of the same force that told me not to be afraid, that I can fight too.
In fifteen minutes my life changes. The bag floats up too high and gets caught in a tree. I want to climb up and get it, release it from the tree’s grasp, but that would be imposing my will on something else. This is the end of the dance, the part in the music where the girl realizes that she is being watched and carefully returns to her seat, not because she is ashamed but because she is done dancing.
I turn off my camera and zip up my coat. It feels like it should be snowing and as I look up to the sky and see if I can see the snowflakes that the bag was trying to catch I am caught myself.
Circumstances. The moment in time when we realize or don’t realize that we need to fight for something. My life seems to be a slow downward cycle of hell until I reach the very bottom and am sucked into the whirlpool or the black hole that appears when we refuse to fight. But what am I fighting? Death? I am not afraid of death, at some points I would gladly welcome it to take me away from this world. My father? Who is brave enough to fight my father? Perhaps that is who I’m fighting then. Fighting to be my own person, and not let him push me around. Fighting to recognize the despair that threatens to overcome me and drag me to the eye of the storm that is my own hatred and fear.
Fear. I am fighting fear. That is my circumstance and I fight it with beauty. If I can remember that I am not alone. Even though I feel alone I’m not. I walk back towards my house, and I am that much wiser. If you know who you’re fighting then you can fight back. I laugh, realizing that is something my father would say. Know who you’re fighting and you are more likely to win. Fear has glittering eyes, hypnotic and forceful, how else would it be able to draw you in. You cannot see it until it is too late and you are trapped by your own fear, and you don’t know how to escape.
I fight back with beauty; beauty I film in the strange places people would not think to look for it. I think of the woman, frozen to death on the sidewalk, as people walked past her. I didn’t. There was death there, and people fled from it. Not knowingly, but they did. I didn’t. I filmed it, because it was beautiful. Where others would see only the horror of loss I saw beauty. I saw God, looking at me through her dead eyes, and I looked right back, because He wanted me to. He wanted me to see the beauty; he wanted me to know that I was not alone and that I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.
When the day comes, and I know it will come, when my father realizes that he has not ‘cured’ me I will need to fight there too. Circumstances will arise and I will face them, because through everything I’ve seen in my life, I will be prepared to tell him what ever I have to, to escape. I will remember the plastic bag, and that which it represented. The child unafraid to play in the snow, who will tell me that I need to be free and see the world as he does; as a beautiful whole. I will tell my father what he wants to hear, so he will let me go, and I will be free.
I will see the bag as the lady dancing, calling me to dance with her. Maybe there will be a real woman who I can go to when that happens. But the dancer will tell me that it doesn’t matter what people think of me. She will tell me that I need to fight, because I need to escape. She will help me understand that sometimes the circumstances do call for a lie, that I can dance around the truth with her if it means I can be free with her. Circumstances will arise one day and I will need to raise up to face them, take them and analyse them so that I can fight back.
How did I learn all this from a plastic bag floating in the wind? I lock the door of my room, knowing my father will be angry, but not caring. I learned all this from the bag in the wind, because I was not afraid to look, not afraid to think. People are compelled to respond to everything, the simple, the complex, the important and the mundane. There is no one kind of problem that warrants us fighting back; it is every problem, every moment, every day.
A plastic bag taught me the most important thing I ever learned, that we may appear to be blown away by the wind, lifeless and careless, but there is a life behind everything. A benevolent force took the time to tell me not to be afraid, so that I would know that I can fight fear with beauty, and pain with wonder.
I watch the video on my TV, watching the events unfold again. A plastic bag blows in the wind, its fate sealed by the wind as it floats down the street past on coming traffic and people in the distance. But now I see that its fate isn’t sealed, it is still fighting for its freedom, just like I am. And I watch the fifteen minutes again, until the bag again becomes entangled in the branches of the tree. And I know that when I escape it will be hard, and that every day I am fighting to get there, but it will eventually happen for me too.
I will be caught in the branches of some tree, seen as trapped, limited by some people, but I will be free. No longer will I be misunderstood, scrutinized and suspected. I will not be pushed around. For now I will let the wind control my life, silently fighting back by being myself, but when the chance presents its self, when circumstances require me to fight back, I will fight. I will win. I will be free.

ADOS - Attention Deficit Oooh Shiney!

Last semester in psychology we stopped to have a full class discussion on ADD and ADHD. We were studying psychological disorders and had watched a movie about medicating children who are diagnosed with having either Attention Deficit, or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorders. It's one of those disorders that seem to be more and more common in the last couple years. Psychologists are getting worried about the increase in these disorders, and people are saying that television and video games are giving our kids ADD, and that the excess amounts of sugar in everything we eat is giving the ADHD. They blame society for an increase mental health problems. They do the same with depression, bipolar and other mood disorders, blaming career and money driven worlds that push us to strive for standard of living instead of quality of life. Surely this is the reason that so many more people suffer from depression.
But is it really a case of more people suffering? Or just more people coming forward with their problems and in turn being diagnosed. There is a difference after all.
Three hundred years ago a person with bipolar or schizophrenic would be told that they were possessed. This was the common diagnosis for hundreds of years, where exorcisms would be attempted and if that didn't work, they could be killed. As little as seventy years ago, the only treatment for depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia was electroshock therapy (ECT). An electrode was attached to your head and you were zapped with a very powerful current. The patient suffered muscle spasms, memory loss, broken bones, and sometimes even death. If that didn't work, lobotomies were common. These weren't the types of focused biopsies we do today to check for brain diseases. Doctors went through your eye with an icepick and removed brain tissue. This was post WW1, and today would be deemed completely barbaric. But we didn't understand psychological problems back then the way we do now.
So you can imagine how many people would confess to having a depressive mood disorder. How many people do you think would seek help if they knew there was a chance of being electrocuted, or something even worse.
Then the first anti depressants came out. Medications altered brain chemistry, changing the way that our hormones were released and absorbed. Trust in the psychological community who seemed to have been experimenting on our brains without truly understanding what was wrong. The first antidepressants and antipsychotics had the side effects of being "mentally numbing" and people said "killed their soul". Mood stabilizers like Lithium made people feel like zombies, and the side effects were brutal. And for what? To feel a little more happy? It didn't seem worth it.
So chemists and biologists and psychologists got together and started looking at better ways of dealing with depression. They figured out possible reasons for what was causing these disorders, and learned about serotonin and norepinephrine and dopamine, the hormones that make us happy. They started to figure out how the brain worked, how it made these chemicals and how to make sure the brain was making enough of them.
Once we figured out it wasn't the patients fault that they were unhappy and that they couldn't just "snap out of it" we were a lot more sympathetic. there was less of a social stigma to step forward and say "I have a mental illness and I am not going to let it control me."
The problem changed. Now if you were unhappy there was a drug for that. It did become widely over diagnosed and people have became completely over medicated. The number of depressed people rose drastically and the reason was two fold. First, more people who were actually depressed felt they could come forward and seek help without fear of harsh treatments or social isolation. The number of people who suffered from depression didn't increase, but the number of people willing to admit they had this disorder did. Secondly, the availability of a "quick fix" for life's problems was so great that people who may not be clinically depressed started telling their doctors they were. With the widespread use of the Internet as a tool for self-diagnosis and you have an abuse of antidepressant drugs.
What people didn't realize was that the side effects hadn't vanished. People with depression would deal with the side effects of an upset stomach, nausea, and even the thoughts of suicide if it meant not feeling like you'd been hit by a truck every morning, and that you were beyond worthless in society. People with major depressive disorder (MDD) would take the risk if it meant a normal day, waking up happy, and the potential to live a normal life. Normal people taking these drugs probably don't like that too much, but I can't speculate there.
The fact that you can log onto google, list your symptoms and get a list of diseases and disorders you might have is a problem. The fact that if you present this list to a doctor, the doctor gives you medicine is just as big. Which brings us to someone else diagnosing a disorder.
Teachers.
Sixty years ago a kid who was hyperactive, unfocused, unable to pay attention, disobedient, easily bored, or overly talkative was a brat or a bad kid. Then psychologists and psychiatrists figured out that dopamine, one of the hormones that make us happy, was all off in some of these bratty kids. While increases in sugar consumption and TV watching in today's society does play a huge role in the energy level in today's children, this chemical unbalance is also important. Together you have the prevalence of ADD and ADHD.
So now there was a disorder that could explain bad behaviour and there was a cure of sorts. Put them on Ritalin, or some other drug, and they'll behave, learn better and be overall better kids, right? Wrong.
A quick psych lesson here, kids with ADD and ADHD are not mentally over stimulated, but rather under stimulated. They act out because their brains are seeking stimulation on an emotional and physical level. Ritalin has occasionally been dubbed "kiddie Cocaine" and it's in effect similar. It's a stimulant that gives stimulates the brain so that they can focusing instead of seeking out stimulation in their environment.
So teachers were informed that not all the bad kids in their classes were just bad kids, but some of them had a genuine disorder and could be treated. So teachers started diagnosing ADD/ADHD in their classrooms. You can imagine that giving a stimulant to a kid who doesn't have a chemical imbalance would be very counter intuitive, and you'd be right. The same way giving cocaine to someone does not fix their behaviour.
So is it worth it? Does medicating anyone help these people or does the availability of a drug to "cure" psychological disorders simply lead to over diagnosis and medication of "normal" people and kids. Surely not every sad person has depression, and not every bratty kid has ADD/ADHD.
Here's another quick psych lesson which is based on the definition of a disorder. According to the DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders) mental condition becomes a disorder when it causes significant interference with daily life. So depression is only a disorder if it is causing you significant problems in your daily life. You stop going out because you think people hate you, you stop working because you think "what's the point?" and you stop living your life because of the depression.
A bratty kid is just a bratty kid unless it's a significant disruption and nothing can be done to change the behaviour. If a kid is acting out to get attention that's one thing, but if the child honestly cannot focus no matter how hard they try, and cannot sit still no matter how much they might want to, that's a disorder.
For example:
A young boy is starved for attention at home. His parents both work and don't seem to have time for him, don't help him with his homework, don't even notice he has any. He is allowed free run of the house and is not under any significant rules at home. In school he continues to act out, reveling in the attention of teachers and peers. He doesn't understand the work because nobody takes the time to teach it to him, and so he doesn't do the work, falling further and further behind in school until he eventually gives up entirely. The teachers can't deal with his acting out and suggests to the parents he has ADD or ADHD.
The teacher here is probably wrong. With some attention and help he could probably begin to put school as a priority again. With time he might catch up on what he has missed and integrate into middle and high school with few problems. Without help from parents and teachers, he will continue to struggle. I wouldn't say it's bad parenting, in today's world it's common for both parents to work just to make ends meet. But someone needs to lay down the law, set rules, help with homework and make sure that education is important. Seven year old boys would rather play in the sandbox or ride their bikes then do math.
Example 2:
A young girl with older siblings and a single mom struggles with school. She hides her homework, but each night is required to sit down with someone and do the work. Her mom tries to get her interested in reading, talks to the teacher about her poor grades and attends parent teacher interviews. Despite the parent and the teacher's best efforts the girl is unable to focus in class, struggles with her work and has problems with friends. By grade four she struggles with reading and writing, basic math and science, and has been told she has a learning disability.
A teacher finally suggests to the girl's mom that the girl has ADD and should see a psychologist. The psychologist prescribes her medication and after a few weeks she is able to not only focus, but understand her work.
The difference? The second child actually has ADD. She also happens to be my sister. She struggled with school for years; teachers refusing to say she had ADD because it has become over diagnosed and teachers get in trouble for suggesting it. No matter how hard her teacher, my mom, my brother and I tried, we could not get her to focus. She was always high energy and never seemed to be able to focus on anything for any length of time. She would come home in tears because she wasn't doing well in school, but just could not seem to understand it, and more than once told us she thought she was stupid.
After she started taking Concerta, a once a day medication for ADD, her behaviour changed rapidly. Within weeks she was sitting down to do math and science of her own accord. She still hated homework because she still didn't understand it, but she could focus better and actually wanted to learn. The day she got 100% on a math test her teacher called my mom in tears to tell her. That year she got an award for most improved student of the year. In fact, after she started taking the Concerta it was discovered that my wonderful little sister is actually a Gifted student. She's incredibly smart when she puts her mind to it.
With a lot of students it's diet. The fact that we live on pop, candy and other goodies that are bad for our health does lead to 'sugar highs' and difficulty focusing. Over stimulation can be just as dangerous as under stimulation. The school system is not designed for children. Hours a day in a desk does not make it easy for kids who would rather be playing. But sometimes there is a deeper issue.
My last example is a name you might recognize. Ty Pennington, the carpenter from TVs Trading Spaces and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition grew up with undiagnosed ADHD. It was undiagnosed because the diagnosis didn't exist when he was seven. But he was able to apply his energy to something that made him happy; carpentry. He built, created, designed and drove his mother nuts. Now when you see him, you can tell he's got lots of energy but is in control of it.
While disorders do exist, it is important to understand their causes and effects. They are usually caused by a chemical imbalance, and they affect the way we live our lives. Medication corrects these imbalances, so when given to someone without the chemical problems, they don't have the same effect and can actually do more harm then good. You can't just disregard their existence and tell people to "get better", but you can't generalize either.
There is an increase in how many people are diagnosed each year with these disorders, but it could be because the stigma is decreasing and people are able to seek help without fear of being deemed "Crazy". There is also an increase in misdiagnosis because we want a quick fix for all our problems. Before medication, cognitive behaviour must be considered. Medication shouldn't be a first response, or even a last resort, but a tool with which real problems are dealt with. And that's my psych lesson for the day. Closing thoughts:
Disorders are real, and help for them is available.
Just because a disorder exists doesn't mean every person with a single symptom of it, has it. Sometimes attention, and a little bit of help are all it takes to help a person out.
Normal is just as much a spectrum as a disorder is. People are different, and we need to be accepting of that.
Somethings we cannot change, but until we try we'll never know.

A weekend at the Gospel Mission

As the title implies, I spent the weekend volunteering at the Gospel Mission in Kelowna. Saturday I worked in the Helping Hands Thrift Store, and today, Sunday, I worked in the kitchen next door. The kitchen is located under a men's hostel, and served dinner to about 100 homeless, and poverty stricken, men, woman and even children. It was an experience I will never, ever forget.
On Saturday I saw generosity in action when people dropped off bags of unwanted clothing, toys and even furniture so that it could be sold to those who cannot afford anything else. Nice clothing for about $2 and usually not more than $10. I helped sort cloths and clean the store, and it felt good.
But nothing could have prepared me for today when I went down to the kitchen after church. I went to the back and met Janelle, who is in charge of preparing dinner this week. She's a first arts student at UBCO, and she set me in charge of cutting and buttering buns so that we could make sloppy joes.
A small group joined us, three teenagers and two ladies, who all go to Trinity as well. Together we made up a plate of cookies, Cinnamon buns, and tarts for Patrick to take out to the people who were already arriving. Janice asked if all the people coming tonight were homeless, and we were given the following answer.
"Not everyone who comes here is homeless. Some just have to chose between rent and food. They choose to pay rent, and come here for food. And some live in the hostel up stairs."
Chose between rent and food. Between being homeless and starving. How do you make that choice? I guess because of places like the Gospel Mission, the choice is a little easier, and it's the choice most make. But can you imagine having to make that choice. Think about that next time you drop $5 on a latte. "I can either have this, or a home."
So we made 150 buns for sloppy joes, made three tubs of salads, three huge trays of mashed potatoes and the meat and vegetable mix for the sloppy joes. For two hours we worked around the kitchen. At one point we were ahead of schedule and I was asked to do some cleaning in the back so that the kitchen could run more efficiently other days as well.
At 4:30 we were asked to get ready, form an assembly line and be a little quieter. Jamie was leading devotionals and prayer. Then there was a knock at the big window, which we opened, and the people started lining up. Within half an hour we had served probably 70 people. I was fighting back tears. There were men my grandfather's age, women who reminded me of my mother, young men and women who were probably no older than me. They had come here in search of what? Better lives? Money? Homes? Education? The paradise the Okanagan is supposed to be? Now they were living in constant survival mode, many on the street layered under coats, toques, mittens and boots.
A lady walked past me and asked if she could have an extra bowl of potatoes for her granddaughter. A peak over the counter suggested the little girl was no older than my sister, meaning probably 9 or 10. Of course we gave it to her. A little while later the girl came back and held up a younger girl, probably 4 or 5, who smiled brightly at us.
"She would like to know if you have any candy."

We didn't. I didn't even have any stashed in my purse I could share.
But smiles started to greet us as some of the people left. They thanked us and told us it was good. We ran out of salad and still there were people coming. They lined up and enjoyed the food and coffee. The room smelt of cigarettes and dirt, but also of a home cooked meal. Something we all too often take for granted.
Food. Real food, that we can live off of.
I saw faces I recognized from the thrift store yesterday. They smiled at me and sat down around the big plastic tables.

An atheist would ask "so, where is your God for these people?" and I think for once I know the answer. God was right there, standing beside these people, saying to them that there was hope and there were people who cared about them. God was standing in the kitchen guiding the hands, and more importantly, the hearts of all the people who were cooking, cleaning and preparing and planning. He was smiling at those who have given a huge part of their lives to helping those who need it the most.
Where is my God? He is pouring out his love on the people who need him more than anything. So he doesn't snap his almighty fingers and give them the world. Instead he moves the hearts, minds, hands and feet of willing (and sometimes not so willing) Christians to go and do their part. We are on mission here, and all over the world, loving on those who need it more than we do.
I got in my nice warm car at the end of the night, and in my rear view mirror watched people I'd served only moments before walk into the cold night. Some live on these streets.
Doug, who sometimes does dishes for the Mission, lived on the streets for years, he now lives in the hostel. I've never heard someone so happy to have gained 80 pounds. Yes, gained 80 pounds. He told me he had stopped drinking, and he'd never done coke. He was proud if that, that he hadn't done the drugs. He admitted he was apparently a bad judge of character, but he loved the people at the church he went to.
He wanted a bible from Janelle, because everyone else at the church had one.
"I wasn't sure," he told me, "if it was like AA, where you had to earn stuff, or had to go for a certain amount of time first. I'm new at this, so I didn't know. But when the guy is talking, and everyone knows what he's saying, and I want to know it too."
He told me how the church people were great. They were nice. They took care of him. He chatted on happily about going from 90lbs when he first got here, to 170 now. He had a smile that filled the room.
And the room was full. Full of life, and laughter even. But more than that it was filled with stories. The guys counted the plates as they washed them. Last I heard was 104.
One hundred and four stories in that room. Stories of lives broken, dreams shattered and hope lost.
One hundred and four stories that are all the evidence you need of a broken world. All the ammo you need to make this bleeding heart cry.
So where was my God tonight? He was feeding 104 people in the Gospel Mission.
Every man in that room is somebody's son. Every woman was once a little girl. Every person there once was, and some still are, a child. All they need is to be treated with dignity and respect, to be loved on and cared for. They are God's children now, and they always will be. He loves them, and moves us to help them. God didn't create the homeless person, he created the Christian to help them.
For the first time I'll quote my favourite verse. Micah 6:8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Of count downs and snowy days

You learn some interesting things about people in several different ways. As a friend once said, "if you want to learn 23 interesting things with me, spend a day with me."

Look in their eyes, listen to their conversations (preferably with you), look at what they wear, what they eat, and what they post as their Facebook statuses.

In their eyes you will see their soul. When they say the eyes are the window to the soul, they don't lie. I look in people's eyes and see the compassion, or the stubbornness, or the joy, or the sadness that's there.

If we listen to them talk, and more importantly, we understand what they are saying, we learn so much about our friends.

What they wear and what they eat may show their morals, their upbringing, and their perspective on their self. Are they vegetarians that only wear natural fibers? Do they have a strict religious diet or clothing? Are they the kind of people who refuse to wear brand names, or wear them only? These things can speak to us.

But facebook? What could you possibly learn from facebook?

As the title of this suggests, a lot. I like reading my friend's status updates because it lets me know the current weather back in Calgary where my friends continuously complain (or rejoice) about the cold and the snow.
Then there are the countdowns too. My friends are not always considerate enough to put what they are counting down to, but just putting things like "3 days!" Usually a little research concludes that it is a trip or a birthday or something to that effect. If not, you just have to wait until the status that tells you that "the day has come! It's..." and fill in the blank.
Quite often it is exams or school that cause the most distress. I see a lot of my friends are in university now and are doing the "one down, three to go" with their exams. Although I do love the ones that talk of burning their text books now that the class is done. Might I suggest selling the text books back, and burning the homework instead? It's a little more economic that way.

So, of count downs and snowy days.

On facebook I have friends from several walks of life, and from several regions, include a few from California who would probably die of shock if they saw the temperature in Calgary right now. I have friends in New York and England who have radically different weather than we do. The couple in England tend to complain more about rain than the cold, and I often have to remind myself of the time difference when they state they are having a beer, and it's only noon here in BC.
These statuses though show a lot about a person. For example, I know some of my friends adore the snow, and some would rather it be beautiful and sunny all the time. Some don't mind the cold, and some avoid it at all costs. There is my Dad who prefers the cold to the snow because "you don't have to shovel cold".
The countdowns show what's important to people. Also, how well they can count. We all count down to monumental occasions, such as birthdays and holidays, but would everyone please stop counting down the days until Christmas? That's the one holiday we all know is coming, but are never ready for. Although I am done wrapping 50% of my presents, the other 50% are not yet purchased...
I like to think there is a purpose to this, but really it's just to make a casual observation about how much we base our knowledge of our friends off Facebook. I for one would never know when any one's birthday is if it weren't for the handy bar that tells me about up coming birthdays. Facebook sends me emails saying that in the next couple weeks these people are having birthdays and you should probably get them something.
Oh!
A quick check of facebook has granted me one more type of status I love, the quotes. I did one the other day, quoting a fictional character, but it was deep none the less. I have friends that probably 60% of their facebook status updates contain a quote or song lyrics. Want to know what TV shows your friends watch? Facebook will tell you. Their favourite movies/music/singers/songs?
What do you want people to know about you? What do you want to tell the world? Because that's what your facebook profile is, it's a window to you. It's a glimpse at who you are and what you like. So, what message do you want to send?